“The effort that Moldova is making is absolutely admirable” in the reception of Ukrainian refugees, underlined Friday April 1 on franceinfo Nathalie Loiseau. MEP Renew is in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital. A total of 350,000 refugees have been received in this small country wedged between Romania and Ukraine since the start of the war and 100,000 Ukrainians have remained there. “It can’t last very long”however warned the elected European.
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franceinfo: How is the reception of Ukrainian refugees going?
Nathalie Loiseau: The effort Moldova is making is absolutely admirable. The poorest country on the European continent is home to 100,000 Ukrainian women and children. Half of the refugees are under 18. I was earlier at the Palanca border post, very close to Odessa, where refugees arrive every day. Moldovans do everything they can to bring them comfort first. Refugees are mainly hosted by locals. Today, the international organizations are there whereas they were not there at the beginning. Fortunately, the European Union helps the border guards, who have a lot of work to register everyone. It is an effort of solidarity and generosity that is truly commendable. I was there both to realize and then to see how the European Union can better help a country which is poor and subject to permanent blackmail from Russia because it depends 100% on it for its gas.
You show this remarkable solidarity, but is the situation, under these conditions, sustainable for Moldova?
It can’t last very long. The Moldovans, like the refugees, are worried. For the moment, there is a form of respite in the Odessa region. There are also refugees who return to Odessa to take on a little more business because they left in a disaster. They return to Moldova afterwards. The fear is that the announcements made by the Russian regime will not be followed up, that the war will resume in the west and in the south. There, it might be 100,000 refugees all at once. At the very beginning of the war, about 12 to 15,000 arrived per day and per border post. It is therefore absolutely essential not only that we help Moldova to cope, but that these refugees can be distributed elsewhere in Europe.
What do these refugees aspire to? Stay in Moldova, close to their country, or go further west?
It varies. Some stay in Moldova with the hope that if things calm down, they can return as soon as possible. They testify that in Odessa the police are doing their job, the public services are working as best they can. But at the same time, people are standing in horrendous lines trying to get food. The next challenge is to be able to send humanitarian aid to Odessa. It just started on Friday. Others want to go further: some have already gone to Romania. They try to go somewhere else, with heavy hearts. These are not people who left their country with joy of heart, who dream of settling elsewhere. They dream of returning to Ukraine but they are very afraid that it won’t be for a very long time.
Faced with this situation, what can the European Union do?
We must support the countries that are on the front line: Romania, Poland, Slovakia… And also Moldova, which is not in the European Union. We have started to support it and probably more needs to be done because it is such a small country. It is financial support because there is galloping inflation: forecasts are 30% in the year. This is due to the fact that Gazprom, which is the only gas supplier in Moldova, has driven up prices and is threatening to turn off the tap by putting forward a Moldovan debt. We feel that it is a desire to blackmail this country, which is also suffering massive disinformation from Moldovan politicians and media close to Vladimir Putin. They broadcast propaganda all day long saying that “it is NATO that threatened Russia, that neo-Nazis are running Ukraine”. All that we have also heard, unfortunately, in our country. It is a terrible poison.